Recent neuroimaging evidence has suggested that expert dancers have stronger activation than novices in areas of parietal cortex while watching dance. The role of parietal cortex in the processing of spatial information could suggest that expert dancers are more attuned than novice dancers to spatial cues while watching dance. Instead of focusing…

We report the results of an fMRI investigation of the neural bases of written language comprehension (reading) and production (spelling). Both tasks were examined in the same individuals, allowing greater precision in establishing the relationship between the neural underpinnings of these two cognitive functions. Also examined was the relationship…

Hippocampal subfields CA3 and CA1 are hypothesized to differentially support the generation of associative predictions and the detection of associative mismatches, respectively. Using high-resolution functional MRI, we examined hippocampal subfield activation during associative retrieval and during subsequent comparisons of memory to matching or…

RSK2 is a Ser/Thr kinase acting in the Ras/MAPK pathway. "Rsk2" gene deficiency leads to the Coffin-Lowry Syndrome, notably characterized by cognitive deficits. We found that "mrsk2" knockout mice are unable to associate an aversive stimulus with context in a lithium-induced conditioned place aversion task requiring both high-order cognition and…

In the majority of people, functional differences are observed between the two cerebral hemispheres: language production is typically subserved by the left hemisphere and visuospatial skills by the right hemisphere. The development of this division of labour is not well understood and lateralisation of visuospatial function has received little…

In the present experiment, we used search asymmetry to test whether the sustained attention to response task is a better measure of response inhibition or sustained attention. Participants performed feature present and feature absent target detection tasks using either a sustained attention to response task (SART; high Go low No-Go) or a…

Asymmetries of emotional facial expressions in humans offer reliable indexes to infer brain lateralization and mostly revealed right hemisphere dominance. Studies concerned with oro-facial asymmetries in nonhuman primates largely showed a left-sided asymmetry in chimpanzees, marmosets and macaques. The presence of asymmetrical oro-facial…

A common assumption is that phonetic sounds initiate unique processing in the superior temporal gyri and sulci (STG/STS). The anatomical areas subserving these processes are also implicated in the processing of non-phonetic stimuli such as music instrument sounds. The differential processing of phonetic and non-phonetic sounds was investigated in…

Interpersonal communication researchers have not only tended to ignore the role that listening plays in face-to-face interaction, they have also viewed message production and message processing as distinct processes. The message production-message processing bipolarity is belied by recent research suggesting that mirror neurons subserving speech…

A central feature of auditory STM is its item-limited processing capacity. We investigated whether auditory STM capacity correlated with regional gray and white matter in the structural MRI images from 74 healthy adults, 40 of whom had a prior diagnosis of developmental dyslexia whereas 34 had no history of any cognitive impairment. Using…

Long-term memory and plasticity, including long-term synaptic facilitation (LTF) of the "Aplysia" sensorimotor synapse, depend on the activation of transcription factors that regulate genes necessary for synaptic plasticity. In the present study we found that treatment with 5-HT and behavioral training produce biphasic changes in the expression of…

Six experiments used a within-subjects renewal design to examine the involvement of kappa opioid receptors (KORs) in regulating the expression and recovery of extinguished fear. Rats were trained to fear a tone conditioned stimulus (CS) via pairings with foot shock in a distinctive context (A). This was followed by extinction training of the CS in…

This study investigates the contribution of the left and right hemispheres to the comprehension of bilingual figurative language and the joint effects of salience and context on the differential cerebral involvement in idiom processing. The divided visual field and the lexical decision priming paradigms were employed to examine the activation of…

Through protein interactions mediated by their cytoplasmic C termini the GluN2A and GluN2B subunits of NMDA receptors (NMDARs) have a key role in the formation of NMDAR signaling complexes at excitatory synapses. Although these signaling complexes are thought to have a crucial role in NMDAR-dependent forms of synaptic plasticity such as long-term…

Decision making, a complex mental activity underlying the act of choosing from among the alternatives in attaining a goal constitutes the core component of planning, a higher order cognitive process as per the PASS theory of intelligence. An attempt, therefore, has been made in the present study to examine the development of planning behaviour in…